Harry Potter and Snape's Snake
by PigsHaveFlown
Summary: Harry has had many a strange encounter at Hogwarts before. But none can quite compare to this...
1. Another First Chapter about Harry's Scar

Note: If I owned Harry Potter, I would be a lot richer than I am now and probably not writing fanfiction. That means I don't, if it wasn't already obvious :P

It was a dark night, as it usually was. Harry, Ron and Hermione had settled themselves into their favourite comfy chairs. The chairs had been previously occupied but Harry had soon solved that problem, being more important than everyone else in the room. The three companions were sat in silence watching the embers of the fire slowly die down when Harry was gripped by a sudden pain. Harry crushed his hand to his forehead, writhing in agony screaming from the sheer pain that his scar was exuding.

"OHMYGOD! HARRRRYYYYYYYYYYYY" Ron squealed like a fangirl - he couldn't let his only claim to fame die! People would go back to ignoring him and making fun of his hair... more than they already did. "What it is? What's wrong?" Ron fussed over Harry like a worried mother. Like _his_ mother always did.

"Chill your bean, Ronno" Harry said coolly, waving his hand to calm Ron down. "It's only my scar, you know, the one I got from that time I beat the most powerful and dangerous wizards in like...the whole world" Harry said matter-of-factly.

Ron observed that Harry was acting very calm considering that he had just been in immense agony. Hermione looked up from her book to see what all the commotion was about. It was distracting her from _Hogwarts: A History:_ a book that she must have read seventeen times that year already. Upon seeing that Harry had his hand to his forehead she returned to her book, trying to remember whether it _was_ possible to apparate inside the Hogwarts grounds or not. Harry's scar hurting was nothing new and, quite frankly, she was getting bored of his attention-seeking.

Feeding Harry's already over-enlarged ego by paying attention to the largely exaggerated claims of pain in his forehead, Ron said "I think you should go and visit Dumbledore, just in case", Ron looked so worried that Harry actually considered listening to someone else's ideas rather than just doing what the hell he wanted, like he normally did.

"No. I am a way better wizard than Dumbledore. Besides, I've already been to see him 3 times today"

"Oh" said Ron, dejectedly. Ron always seemed to look dejected. Noticing this, Harry grabbed Ron's hand and squeezed it consolingly.

"Don't worry, Ron. One day I'm sure you will be able to do magic too," said Harry reassuringly

"I'm sorry" said Hermione, and not sounding sorry at all, "Do my ears deceive me.. or did _you_ [she pointed accusatorially at Harry] just say that you were better than Dumbledore?" Her grating voice and superior attitude made Harry want to punch her in the face, but if he did that he would have to surround himself with better, good-looking friends, and that might take the focus of the story off him. Harry clenched his fist in his lap rather than smashing it right into Hermione's overlarge front teeth. "You can't even say 'Petrificus Totalus' properly" she continued, rubbing salt into the already sore wound,

"I CAN!" Harry roared. Harry roared a lot; perhaps something to do with his severe anger management issues, which surprisingly no one had ever picked up on. "Petril...petifilus...petrofltus" Harry gave up. Hermione was right, Harry could not pronounce spells properly. In fact the only reason Harry was still alive was because he has an enormous amount of good luck, in fact the magical world pretty much revolved around him...in his opinion anyway.

Just as he was about to blow somebody up, or even set some snakes loose, Harry took it upon himself to storm out of the common room, grabbing his conveniently placed invisibility cloak as he went. Harry really had no idea where he was going to go and so he resorted to just wondering around the school grounds. 12 paces later, a flashing image of Snape appeared in Harry's mind.

_Dammit_ thought Harry. _He always has to do Occlumens at inopportune times!_ The sudden image of Snape, burned into his brain, had made Harry flustered. He ran down to the lake, deciding to take a dip in order to cool himself off.

Reaching the lake, Harry shimmied out of his clothes, bar his undergarments. He was looking forward to this, deciding that getting wet in the dirty great lake might help clear his mind of the important things that were cluttering up his mind space (his scar... Snape... defeating Death Eaters... Snape... his next autograph session... Snape... that inferior wizard, Voldemort... and Snape). While Harry swam he began to contemplate life's greatest mystery: _Why_ _does Snape hate me?_ He contemplated_ I am famous, devilishly good-looking and sexy to boot._

Harry began to feel the biting cold increasing with every pull of his arms. He really was a wimp sometimes, he had only done 7 strokes and already the cold was more than he could bear.

_I hope the Merpeople aren't out today_ Harry, thinking of how exposed his lower torso was to their ferocious tridents.

Unluckily for Harry, at that moment Snape swam into view, his lean legs kicking with a force that was carrying him quite rapidly through the murky waters; straight towards Harry. Snape was soon directly in front of Harry, who could not help noticing that the potions master was a good 95% naked, clearly a seasoned lake swimmer if he was able to handle the cold. Harry thought to himself how glad he was that he was not wearing white boxers. Treading water in see-through pants in front of a Speedo-clad Snape was not something he particularly fancied right now.

"Fancy seeing you here, Potter..." Snape whispered. The potions master did not often talk at a level that was audible.

Harry was rendered completely speechless..


	2. Into The Dark

"Detention" Snape whispered, in the same barely audible tone, "The lake is off limits, and you are out of bed out of hours. I will see you after dinner in my office." Snape continued before turning tail and swimming back the way he came. After this encounter, Harry decided it would be in his best interest to return to Gryffindor tower and retire for the night. When Harry finally walked into the common room, it was to discover that Ron and Hermione had already gone up to bed. He walked up to his dormitory and rolled into bed, where he dreamt about what might have happened had Snape not given him detention.

Harry awoke, as normal and met with his only friends for several books (Ron and Hermione), where they went down to breakfast.

"Where did you go last night?" questioned Ron. Hermione really couldn't care less.

"For a swim, if you must know" replied Harry, trying to be nonchalant

"And..." Ron was pressing for details

"I had a...vision" Harry answered truthfully; he did have a mental flash of Snape after all, but he did not want to tell Ron and Hermione about meeting Snape at the lake.

"Be careful you don't let Trelawney hear you say that" Ron laughed to himself. He talked about the Divination teacher so much that most people in Gryffindor Tower assumed he had a crush on her.

"You're always on about Professor Trelawney. Sometimes I think she's the only thing that makes you happy," Hermione said

"She's not..." Ron said, staring deeply into Hermione's eyes "...Pig makes me happy as well!"

Hermione stormed off in a mood, a common occurrence. She was off to the library to use the musty old pages of the books to dry her tears.

"Blimey... does she constantly have a Boggart in her pants?" Ron said, rather bemused. Bemused, worried or dejected appeared to be the only expressions Ron could muster.

"I think she wanted you to say she made you happy," Harry replied, though being honest, he didn't really care.

"But Pig is my owl! Of course he makes me happy. I can't believe she's being like this," Ron said, going back to biting his nails.

Harry and Ron scampered off to their first lesson, which just so happened to be Charms. They took up the usual seat at the back of the classroom where Hermione had saved them chairs, despite the fact that she seemed to be fervently ignoring Ron. The back of the class was the prime place for Potter and company to situate themselves; they could talk at their leisure and not be heard.

The three spent their lesson chatting, and Harry decided it was high time he tell them about the events of yesterday evening. He didn't want to bring up the nearly naked Snape, so he stretched the truth slightly and told them that he had been wandering the grounds of the school when his invisibility cloak snagged on a tree and was ripped from around his head. Harry had continued to walk at his leisure until he had walked into Snape, who had promptly given him detention for being out of bed out of hours.

"Bloody hell, Harry!" Ron exclaimed for the 19th time that day, "That is the WORST luck". Harry secretly disagreed with this assessment and was surprisingly rather looking forward to seeing the Potions Master later.

The rest of the day rushed by, and before Harry knew it he was walking down to the dungeons and to Snape, who was waiting to punish him.

"Do come in, Potter" Snape barely whispered as Harry pushed open the creaky door. Harry made a mental note to thank Fred and George for the magical hearing aid that he had especially put in earlier that evening.

"Follow me," Snape said, leading Harry to a secluded dark corner of his store cupboard. Harry's mind began racing about what exactly Snape had up his robes.

"I want you... to re-label all of the ingredients containers, Potter" Snape said, a wicked smile twisting his mouth. Harry's heart sank – this was really not what he had in mind when Snape had mentioned detention. He was famous! He shouldn't have to re-label boomslang skin! He should be doing photo shoots and signing autographs, didn't Snape know who he was?

A few moments passed in silence, aside from the scratching of Harry's quill on labels and the clink of bottles being placed or removed from the shelves. Snape was the one to break the silence; he had been pacing around the classroom for the past ten minutes as if he was contemplating what he was going to do. Snape's deep-toned voice cut through the darkness and rekindled hope in Harry's heart.

"Harry..." It was possibly the first time that Snape had called Harry by his first name, "...I'd like you to have a look at my snake"


	3. Sleeping Snake

Snape's snake was magnificent to behold; he had put it on the table and used the Lumos charm to allow Harry to see it in all its glory.

"I hope Dumbledore won't mind me showing this to you..."

Harry was transfixed.

"I am worried. It sleeps a lot and doesn't seem to want to get up"

Harry bravely reached out and touched it; sure enough Snape's snake was very hard to rouse.

Harry poked and prodded the snake until he was very worn out. But Harry was not a particularly athletic person and it remained limp and lifeless. Snape was distraught.

"His scales are starting to peel off" Snape said, pointing at a patch of the snake's scaly skin, where indeed the scales were beginning to flake. Harry moved around the table to better examine the snake, but his beady black eyes were closed.

"I know we haven't always got along, Potter… but could you possibly communicate with him and find out what appears to be the problem?" Harry noticed that Snape had never looked so sad.

"I'll try my hardest," said, Harry. This was a sure way to get into Snape's good potion books, if ever there was one.

"Hissy hiss hissssss", said Harry, in a hissing sort of way. Little did Snape know that his ability to speak Parseltongue was very exaggerated, like most of Harry's other abilities. It was one of his many excellent tools that he used to make himself more famous, and seem especially unique and more important than any of his other schoolmates.

Whilst he gently pretended to soothe Snape's snake, Harry started reminiscing back to that time when his snake had unexpectedly lashed out at Justin Finch-Fletchley. Even now, he wished that it hadn't happened in public so that he could have explained his true intentions to that poor, stupid Hufflepuff.

Now, in the company of one of Hogwarts' hardest teachers, Harry's mind started to wander...


End file.
